


It's not polite to lie to your sensei

by iwaizumemes (skytramp)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Reunions, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4843805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skytramp/pseuds/iwaizumemes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Tadashi had been warned by his fellow teachers that this year’s kids were a rowdy bunch, but he hadn’t really believed it until now. </p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	It's not polite to lie to your sensei

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaystoDawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaystoDawn/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAZE WITH LIKE ONE MINUTE TO SPARE OMFG

Tadashi had been warned by his fellow teachers that this year’s kids were a rowdy bunch, but he hadn’t really believed it until now. One of his students, a small boy, with curly brown hair, screamed loud enough to shake the window panes in their frames when a larger boy jumped over his own desk to land on top of him. It was chaos in the five seconds before Tadashi could cross the room and pull them apart, other students started yelling, some even crying at the shock, and the smaller boy got a large (for a six year old) fist to the jaw.

“Kanzaki-kun! Subaru-kun! Calm down!” Tadashi said in his firmest voice, one hand on each of the boys’ chests. Kanzaki-kun, the smaller boy didn’t resist but he looked defiant and straightened his shoulders. A small trickle of blood came from his lip. Subaru-kun thrashed, flailing his arms and pushing against Tadashi’s hand, but not making enough headway to get past.

“He said I was too big!” Subaru yelled, “That I must be stupid to be in this class because this class is for small kids!! He said, Sensei, he said!” 

When Tadashi looked back at Kanzaki he knew the boy’s claims were true. The smaller boy’s eyes were vacant, but unrepentant in a way uncommon to such young children.

“Calm down.” He repeated, and Subaru stilled. No amount of teasing excused the violence, so it was his duty to punish them both. “Stay here.” He said to both of them and went back to his desk to pick up the phone to the office.

“Yes, hello, this is Yamaguchi-sensei, I have two boys here who I need to speak with privately and one will require the nurse’s attention, can you send someone to watch my class? Thank you.”

After few minutes of awkward silence, the rest of the class too stunned to speak, a secretary from the office came to watch his class and Tadashi gestured for both boys to follow him.

Once they were out in the hallway he spoke, ushering both boys in front of him. “We’re going to the nurse first, so that we can take care of Kanzaki-kun’s lip, and then we will talk.” He hoped he sounded adequately ominous, as he didn’t know what else he could say.

The nurse cleaned the small wound and declared there was no lasting harm and Tadashi had the office call the parents of both boys. In the hallway outside the administrator’s offices he knelt down and motioned for the boys to do so as well.

“Subaru-kun.” He began, looking at the larger boy. He hadn’t so much as said a word since the fight and his eyes looked wide and scared. “Do you understand why is was wrong to hit Kanzaki-kun?”

The boy nodded, quickly, and Tadashi quirked an eyebrow. “You understand? Can you explain it for me?”

Subaru looked taken aback at the question, but Tadashi tried to keep his face as gentle as possible. It wasn't too hard, he'd always been told he looked too nice anyway.

"Be-because I hurt him?" Well, it was close enough, Tadashi thought, nodding along.

"Yes, because you hurt him. Please apologize to Kanzaki-kun and bow." 

Subaru scrambled to his feet, and bowed at the waist. "I apologize."

"Kanzaki-kun." The boy snapped to attention, though there was still something sly in the quirk of his small mouth. "Do you understand why it was wrong to say those things to Subaru-kun?"

The boy blinked, once, twice. "What things?"

Tadashi clasped his hands in his lap and took a deep breath. "Subaru-kun is part of our class, and it is not nice to mock people for their size. Would it feel good if someone told you that you were too _small_ to be in my class, Kanzaki-kun?"

"I wouldn't care."

Tadashi looked between the still standing form of Subaru and where Kanzaki knelt in front of him. Who would have thought that it was the small one that would cause the most problems? He looked back at Subaru who seemed confused, if still slightly upset.

"Subaru-kun, will you wait for us inside the office, please?"

"Yes, sensei." He slid the office door closed behind him and Tadashi turned back to Kanzaki.

"I don't think you're being truthful, and you should not lie to your sensei, that is very disrespectful." Another tactic, though Tadashi was scared he'd be out of options if this one proved to fail as well.

"I'm sorry, Yamaguchi-sensei." He replied, bowing his head just a little.

"Apology accepted, but I will ask again, do you understand why it was wrong that you mocked Subaru-kun?"

"Yes, sensei." The wry twist of his mouth was back again, though, and Tadashi had the unmistakable feeling that he was being conned by a six year old. At this point he wasn't sure how much headway he could make by repeating the same question or confronting the boy for his lies, maybe it would just be better to wait for his parent to arrive.

"Please wait in the office with Subaru-kun." Tadashi said, and when the door shut behind the small boy he took a deep breath and ran both hands through his hair.

It was only the first week of classes, and already he had a fight that led to blood and a student who refused to listen to him. What a great start to his second year of teaching. 

He sat for fifteen minutes, not eager to join his students inside the office, as he waited for their parents to arrive. Subaru-kun's mother arrived first, a large woman in a floral print dress who seemed absolutely beside herself that her son was involved in something like this, though she didn't seem surprised. 

Truthfully, Tadashi didn't intend to punish Subaru any further, he seemed to genuinely understand that his spur of the moment act of violence had been wrong and that he should do differently in the future. Tadashi said as much to Subaru-san and released the boy back to class and his mother back to her day. 

It took another ten minutes for Kanzaki's parent to arrive, and Tadashi was pulled from his distraction by soft footsteps of a tall man approaching.

"Yamaguchi-sense--" The man began but his voice left him with a choking sound. Tadashi looked up.

"Tsukki?"

~~~

It took Tadashi more than a few seconds to catch his breath before he scrambled to his feet. It really was him, Tsukishima Kei, the boy he'd called best friend for more than a decade, standing here in front of him.

"Tsukki?" He repeated, "What are you doing here?"

"The office called me about Haruichi?" He seemed confused by Tadashi's question, but Tadashi was still confused by his presence.

"Harui--, Kanzaki-kun? He's?"

Tsukki just nodded, curt and formal and a little awkward in a way that only someone who know him would be able to see.

"But his name..."

"His mother's. She raised him, mostly, he's only with me because she's away on business for the next six months."

"Oh." The explanations all made sense, logical, perfect sense, but Tadashi couldn't get the idea that he was stuck in some weird dream out of his head.

The office door slid open and Kanzaki-kun, _Haruichi_ , stood there, apparently drawn by his father's voice. The sight of him reminded Tadashi of his job to do. No matter how crazy everything else was, he had things he needed to say.

"Kanzaki-kun, will you tell your...father," he tried not to choke on the word, "why I called him here?"

Haruichi looked between Tadashi and his father before speaking. "Because Subaru-kun hit me?"

"Someone hit you?" Tsukishima's reply was loud, indignant almost, and it clashed loudly with Tadashi's own simultaneous reply.

"No, Kanzaki-kun."

"No one hit him?" Tsukishima was looking at Tadashi now, confused and maybe a little scared.

"Subaru-kun, another student, _did_ hit him, but that's not why I called you. Haruichi goaded him into it, your, erm, son," he struggled with the connection again, "mocked Subaru-kun by saying he was too large for our class, and Subaru-kun reacted by hitting him. I've had the nurse tend to him and there were no serious wounds, but the real problem is that he doesn't seem to acknowledge that what he did was wrong."

"Subaru-kun is big." Kanzaki-kun offered, and Tadashi almost could have laughed at the tone of his voice. He seemed to have the cutting wit of someone at least twice his age, and really, no wonder with who his father was. Tadashi wondered if humor and attitudes could be genetic.

"Haruichi, apologize to your sensei."

"Sorry, Yamaguchi-sensei." He answered automatically, dropping his shoulders in a quick bow.

Tadashi looked between them and saw the resolution in Tsukishima's eyes. He thought this was over, that his son's half hearted apology for insubordination was enough to absolve him of not admitting to the initial crime.

"Tsukishima-sa-an," he stuttered at the name, "I think you should take Haruichi home for the day so he can think about what he's done and to give him some separation from Subaru-kun. Is that alright, do you have childcare?"

"I work at home. Yes, that's fine." He held out his hand to his son, who took it quickly. "Let's go."

Tadashi watched them turn the corner of the long hallway out of sight.

~~~

The rest of the school day passed without incident, but Tadashi found himself stopping by the office on his way out of the school.

"Excuse me, can I have Kanzaki Haruichi's parental information? I need to contact his dad with a follow up after today's incident."

The secretary nodded, and after shuffling a few papers, handed him a sticky note with the a phone number and the name "Tsukishima Kei" written in neat characters.

By the time Tadashi closed his apartment door behind him he had convinced himself he wasn't going to call. Theoretically, they could go the remainder of the school year without seeing each other again. It would be easy, they didn't have to have any sort of conversation about what happened today, there was nothing between them anymore, just a long dead friendship that could just as well stay dead for all he cared.

Ten minutes later and he had his phone in his hand, dialing Tsukki's number. It rang three times before he answered.

"Hello?" His voice was polite, professional in the way that is used for talking to strangers.

"Hi, erm, um, Tsukishima-s-" he stopped himself from adding the ‘san’, it felt strange, but ‘Tsukki’ was too familiar after all the time that had passed.

"Yamaguchi?"

"Yes."

A few seconds passed, and Yamaguchi could hear something that sounded like a television in the background.

"Um, Yamaguchi, why did you call me?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, I just, I thought we should talk, er, about Haruichi, about this afternoon, I mean." _Yes, Tadashi, that's why you called him after school hours, to talk about school,_ he thought. He could have slapped himself.

"Okay, come over for dinner."

"What?"

"Come over for dinner, we're serving in an hour, here's the address."

Tadashi almost dropped his phone while scrambling to find a pen to write down the address that Tsukishima rattled off through the phone. It took a few seconds afterwards for him to realize that Tsukishima had hung up, and another few seconds to realize if he didn't hurry up and get ready he was going to be late.

It took him two buses and a narrow escape with another patron's cup of coffee before he was knocking on an apartment door in a relatively upscale neighborhood near the school.

Tsukishima opened the door quickly, wearing a dark blue apron that wouldn't have looked out of place were it not...an apron, and beckoned him inside.

"Thank you for your hospitality." Tadashi said, following him towards the wide open kitchen and living room area. Haruichi was playing some sort of video game that seemed to include lots of jumping and flying and possibly running in circles, and Tsukishima was stirring something on the stove.

"You said we needed to talk." He replied. It didn't sound like an invitation, only an explanation as to why he'd invited Tadashi over, and Tadashi only nodded in response.

Tadashi sat on a small stool near the countertop and split his time between watching Haruichi and his game, and watching Tsukki cook. It felt strangely comfortable, if unusually domestic, but the food smelled good, and by the time it was served he was more than happy to settle in across from Tsukishima at the kotatsu and dig in after all the pleasantries were followed. 

They ate in silence, tempered by the sound of their chopsticks hitting the place and the low upbeat music from the paused video game behind them. Haruichi kept stealing glances, as if the game wasn't going to be there by the time he finished his meal. The food tasted as good as it had smelled and Tadashi ate greedily, finishing his plate before either of his hosts.

Haruichi thanked his father for the meal and went back to his game without another word.

"So, you said we needed to talk," Tsukishima said, finally breaking the silence as he took the dinner dishes to the sink and rinsed them off. 

"Erm, yes," he glanced back at Haruichi and his game, "I think it would be better if we spoke alone."

Tsukishima nodded. "Haruichi. Please go get ready for bed, turn off your game." 

"I don't want to." He replied, without looking away from the screen.

"It's time for bed." Tsukishima replied.

"Not yet." Haruichi argued. Tadashi wondered how long they would argue before the child would listen, and if maybe he could get some tips on how to work with him in the classroom.

"Turn it off now or you can't play it at all for the next month." 

That seemed to do the trick, and Haruichi saved his game and turned it off before going down the hallway, presumably to his room. 

Now that they were finally alone, Tadashi found he had no idea what he actually wanted to say. 

"So," he began, moving from his place on the floor to the low couch near the television. "You have a son."

Tsukishima dried his hands and sat beside him on the couch before answering. "Obviously."

"Sorry, I just mean, I didn't expect it." Tadashi looked down at his hands in his lap, not wanting to see whether Tsukishima was taking the conversation seriously or not.

"I didn't expect him either, it was sort of a, spur of the moment thing."

"You married?" Tadashi guessed, glancing up but saw quickly when Tsukishima shook his head.

"Neither of us were interested in that. Haruichi is only living with me at all because of this business opportunity she had, before this I didn't see him often."

Tadashi nodded. "Did you miss him?"

"Would it make me a bad father if I said I didn't?" His voice was quiet, enough that Tadashi had to strain his ears to understand the words, despite their proximity.

"Kind of, yeah. But I'm guessing you didn't really know him." 

Tsukishima laughed, it was quiet at first, but gained volume until Tadashi was worried he'd have trouble regaining his breath. 

"You're right, of course you're right." he said, his voice still thin with breathlessness.

Tadashi didn't know what to say to that, and he let the conversation lapse back into silence. He could heard the water in the bathroom sink turn on and then off again.

"Why didn't you call?" Tsukishima finally said, and it took Tadashi a few seconds of confused staring before he realized he didn't mean this time, he meant before, back when they'd started university.

It wasn't that he never wanted to call, it was that after they'd decided to go to different universities everything happened so quickly, he found more and more excuses not to pick up the phone, their emails were fewer and farther in between, and when the first breaks came neither bothered to make plans with the other.

"I don't know, why didn't you?"

"I wanted... to give you space."

That wasn't what he'd been expecting. If anything he expected an answer like his own, he got busy, he didn't take the time to keep their friendship alive, he didn't expect Tsukki to have a motive.

"What?"

Before he could answer Haruichi appeared at the end of the hall in his pajamas.

"I'm ready for bed." he said simply, and Tsukishima leaned over the back of the couch to see him properly.

"Good, crawl in and I'll be there in a few minutes."

Haruichi disappeared again and Tsukishima turned back towards Tadashi.

"What did you ask?" He said.

"What do you mean 'give me space'?"

"Oh, to be your own person. We were always together, I just, sort of thought it would be easier if you had time to be who you are... without me around. I don't know."

Tadashi let the idea sink in a for a few seconds before he found himself laughing, not unlike Tsukki had been a few minutes before.

When he could breathe again he finally spoke. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard, Tsukki, I didn't need space I needed _you_." He didn't know until he said the words that they were true, and Tsukishima looked at him with an expression that he couldn't interpret, raised eyebrows and a softness at the corners of his mouth.

"We were both stupid then." He replied and leaned forward to wrap his arms around Tadashi's shoulders.

Tsukki had never been much for shows of physical affection, the few times in their childhood that Tadashi had hugged him were met with glares and shrugs to free himself. This felt different. Tadashi leaned into his touch, letting his head fall against Tsukki's shoulder and wrapped his own hands around until his palms were against Tsukki's shoulderblades. They sat like that for a few seconds, unmoving, before Tsukishima pressed a quick kiss to the Tadashi's temple and separated them.

"Hold on, I'll be right back." He said, and walked toward Haruichi's bedroom.

Tadashi couldn't have moved even if he wanted to, and he sat frozen, reveling in the strange warmth on the side of his face until Tsukishima returned a few minutes later.

"I think he's asleep." he stage-whispered and Tadashi smiled. "I think we have a lot to catch up on."

"We do, I'm sorry, Tsukki."

"Don't apologize. We were both idiots." Tsukishima sat back down on the couch, maybe a few centimeters closer than he had been before and took Tadashi's hand as if it was nothing. Tadashi wasn't quite sure if he would ever stop smiling again.


End file.
